The Deep Breathing Protocol

The Deep Breathing Protocol will teach you how breathing correctly is the basis for health, fitness and longevity!

You can live without food for many weeks and you can live without water for some days, but you cannot live without oxygen for more than a few minutes!

Oxygen is LIFE! In the biblical account of creation God breathed into the man's nostrils and he became a LIVING being. It is so vitally important to our entire existence and yet we often take it for granted. Pure air is primarily composed of nitrogen and oxygen. The more oxygen you breathe the more strength and energy you will have.

Oxygen enters the blood via the action of the lungs. This oxygen gives your heart the energy it needs to pump the blood throughout the body. Deep breathing fills all the lung cavities with enough air for them to extract the oxygen into the arteries. Shallow breathing results in lower oxygen transfer and is an invitation for lung troubles and diseases. Regular deep breathing is a sure way to
prevent your lungs from shrinking
while at the same time increasing the cellular energy in the body.

"When we stop for a moment to consider the tremendous importance of the lungs it must become apparent that any neglect of these great central boilers of the body is the worst kind of neglect. The office of the lungs is of the highest importance.

It should be clear that the enlarging and strengthening of the lungs can be satisfactorily accomplished only by the exercise and special training of those organs themselves - in other words beginning on the inside. This truth lies at the very bottom of natural physical training.

To learn to breathe is to learn the A B C of physical health, and it is of special importance that this education of the lungs should precede the education of the outer muscular system, for the natural increase of lung strength and chest room is retarded by methods that begin work on the outside first."

The Mechanics of Breathing

Edwin Checkley continues:

"The lungs do not extend downward beyond the space between the fifth and sixth ribs. This may suggest the reason why the abdomen should not play so prominent a part in breathing as it so generally does. The diaphragm muscle, which seperates the region of the lungs from the region of the stomach and liver, has the power to assist the lungs in receiving and expelling the air. But its power has been so greatly abused that the lungs and chest muscles have been left to do very little of the work that properly belongs to them. The unfortunate habit of
abdominal breathing
, as it is called, is particularly common among men. Men generally exercise the lower parts of the lungs nearest the assisting diaphragm, leaving the upper parts, that first receive the air, in a state of relative weakness and susceptibility."

The Breathing Protocol

This technique takes some practice to master but is well worth the effort.

1. While sitting or standing with a
proper posture
, take in a long breath, expanding the chest until the lungs seem full, without straining the lungs or muscles.

2. Hold the breath for a few seconds and then slowly exhale.

Checkley writes: "By consciously breathing this way the lungs will be enlarged and strengthened and the breathing will become slower. Normal breathing, when the body is at rest, should not include more than ten breaths in a minute. During exercise of an ordinary character the breathing will naturally increase to fourteen or fifteen breaths in the minute.

At the outset long breaths will be a conscious exercise. Take long breaths as often as you think of it. You may not think of it more than once or twice a day at the beginning. Then you will find it easy to remember every hour or so, and then twice or three times an hour, until finally the habit is formed, and the old short, scant breath - a mere gasp in many people - is entirely abandoned.

In all lung exercises endeavor to inflate the the lungs upward and outward instead of downward. Carry chest and lungs as if the inflation were about to lift the body off the ground upward and forward. The feeling of buoyancy given by this habit is not an illusion by any means. It is genuine."

By breathing correctly over time you will build powerful lungs while oxygenating your blood to feed your organs for lasting health and vitality!